Wheat Thins have just hit a home run. They have taken the concept of a “viral” video and ran with it. The new Wheat Thin ads take advantage of social media so much it makes my head spin. Join me as I take a look at the delicious snack’s latest ad campaign.

Wheat Thins “The Crunch Is Calling”

The Crunch is Calling Van for the new Wheat Thins campaign

It’s not a foreign concept, plenty of businesses reward brand loyalty. Some companies offer cards to scan when you’re at their stores, some bars offer “check in” specials for Foursquare, even GetGlue.com offers percentages off online stores when you unlock the “Fan” badge. I’m telling you right now all of these fail to live up to “The Crunch is Calling” campaign for Wheat Thins.

“The Crunch is Calling” campaign is taking a bold step forward in social media marketing. Wheat Thins is mining Twitter for any mention of their brand and then rewarding those who Tweeted about Wheat Thins or at their CrunchIsCalling account. They’ve given out crunch proof head phones, a palate full of Wheat Thins and a lot of surprises. So many surprises that some skepticism has arose.

Wheat Thins “Uber Real” Ad

The spontaneity of the Wheat Thin ads has many people thinking that Wheat Thins are using actors or “marks”. Instead of letting people think this, Wheat Thins went out to prove them wrong. They used one user in particular to make a very large point. Watch and see.

This video is perfect. It’s a great example of flipping the script. Most large companies would let negative press go unaddressed, not Wheat Thins. Taking advantage of their social media campaign they addressed a negative comment in a very public manner.

If you watched the video above, you can see that Derek was on his way out when Wheat Thins ambushed him. He had no clue it was coming. It took his preconceived notions about the advertising campaign and shattered them. Wheat Thins used Derek and his Tweet to send a message to all of their naysayers. A brilliant example of social media marketing.

Other Wheat Thins Ad

I’m going to keep this short because all of the Wheat Thins ads are worth watching. So make sure you’re cursing over to the Wheat Thins Youtube page to check them all out.

There is the Wheat Thins Air Guitar video. Where Dan Crane uses a Wheat Thin to pick his limited edition air guitar that Wheat Thins gave to him. The look on his face as he plays the imaginary instrument is something fierce. Make sure to check that one out, probably the funniest out of the bunch.

Wheat Thins have also gone on the road. One of their videos comes from Bonaroo, the musical festival held annually in Tennessee. Concert goers have told me things get a little out of hand there, so I’m jealous that I couldn’t partake in the Wheat Thins goodness. Wheat Thins set up a tent and it seemed pretty successful. They had interactive TVs that constantly plugged their Twitter CrunchIsCalling account, and also their Facebook page . Great way to use the festival to get a little more publicity.

What We Can Learn From Wheat Thins

Wheat Thins have certainly raised the bar. A lot of companies/businesses can learn from them right now. They have embraced social media in a spectacular way.

In an unstable economy negative press is the last thing a company needs. I don’t think negative press hurts Wheat Thins at all. Adressing the comments about their ads being fake is great. It shows that the company not only stands behind it’s product, but stands behind its advertising as well.

CrunchIsCalling is Wheat Thins official Twitter

The use of social media is awesome. They respond often to their followers on Twitter and often use Tweets that aren’t replies to the @CrunchIsCalling account. That’s dedication. Although it’s a simple search on Twitter for “Wheat Thins”, the dedication to find these tweets shows users/consumers that anyone could be picked for this ad campaign. This idea is great invitation for the consumers to join the digital conversation.

Lastly, we can learn to keep an ad campaign simple. These ads obviously spoof some reality TV shows, such as Cops, but behind all of that is two things. One, a snack product and two, people’s love for that snack product. Taking advantage of what is already being said is such a simple concept that sometimes advertisers forget about it.

Make sure you keep reading Social Medianaires for more coverage of AWESOME ad campaigns like this one. Also check out our brand spanking new Tumblr account!

Wheat Thins has a great ad campaign on their hands, no doubt about it. I want to see more ads like this in the future. I would also now like some Wheat Thins. Hey @CrunchIsCalling, I’m out of Wheat Thins think you can make something happen?

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